NASA Digital Communications Receives Five Webby Award Nominations

Five NASA websites and social media teams are nominated for the 2017 Webby People's Voice Awards. NASA fans can cast their votes through April 20. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Nominees Include Three Jet Propulsion Laboratory Teams

NASA's digital presence has generated five nominations for Webby Awards, the premier honor for online communications, announced Tuesday by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

"As NASA programs lead the United States into the future, our digital communications will be a primary means of connecting with people and getting them excited about exploration," said Jen Rae Wang, NASA's associate administrator for communications in Washington. "I'm pleased to see not only our websites being recognized for their excellence, but also our popular social media efforts."

The NASA Office of Communications has managed NASA.gov, the agency's primary site on the World Wide Web, since 1994, setting a high standard for government online communications. The site has been awarded the Webby for government websites in 2003, 2012 and 2014, while the public has voted it the winner of the People's Voice award eight times since 2002, most recently last year. The site receives more than 300,000 visits a day, surging when news piques the interest of the public, as when it received 6.7 million visits in a week surrounding the announcement of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets on Feb. 22. The site also provides live coverage of NASA launches, press conferences and other mission events.

The Cassini mission site has also been honored previously, with a nomination for science website in 2005 and the Webby for science website in 2009. The Cassini team is gearing up for the end of its 20-year mission this fall.

NASA's social media presence comprises more than 525 social media accounts on 18 platforms. Through this presence, NASA seeks to not just share new discoveries and stories about space exploration on social media, but to do so in a way that is understandable and engages the public to interact with our content. The agency's flagship Twitter account now has more than 22 million followers, the most of any federal government agency and is in the top 100 overall accounts on the platform. NASA's flagship Instagram account has over 20 million followers and is in the top 100 accounts on the platform, in addition to NASA being the largest federal government agency on Facebook and Google+. NASA maintains a robust presence sharing behind-the-scenes stories on Snapchat and curates highlights from around the agency on Tumblr, Pinterest, and GIPHY. All told, NASA's social media presence reaches more than 130 million followers across all agency accounts. Thanks in large part to social media, more people are now connecting and engaging with NASA and learning about its missions.

Members of the public can vote for winners of the People's Voice award by going to webbyawards.com.

Established in 1996 by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the Webby Awards honor excellence on the Internet, including websites, advertising and media, online film and video, mobile sites, apps and social media.